


Written on the Tablet of Your Heart

by Corycides



Series: 100 Fics in 100 Days [15]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Did we forget something?, Gen, Post-Finale Fic, Shit runs downhill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Mathesons fled Philadelphia, they left some loose ends for General Monroe to cut. Such as dealing with one once-loyal member of the Republic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written on the Tablet of Your Heart

People thought they knew what Monroe's temper looked like. They endured one vicious, knee-weakening diatribe under hot, blue eyes and thought – that's it. Only it wasn't. That was just annoyance and show. The people who'd been with him in Chicago (and was it a co-incidence Miles retired there to drink out his penance?) or weathered the long, cold days after Matheson's betrayal knew the truth.

General Monroe's temper was cruel and precise, a lever applied with sadistic glee to its targets weak spots. All without Monroe ever raising his voice. He was always calm on the surface, like he was today.

Kip sat and stained one of the priceless chairs in Monroe's office, licking blood off his lips as he watched his general stare out at the window. His shackled hands dug into the small of his bag as he shifted, trying to get comfortable.

'I should have you executed as a traitor,' Monroe said without looking around. He sounded thoughtful, but Kip had seen him fight and bargain and negotiate in a hundred hell-holes between here and Canada. His fate had already been decided, playing this out was just part of the punishment.

'Miles was my friend,' Kip said tiredly.

Monroe turned around sharply. 'And me?' he asked. 'What was I, Kip?'

What the fuck, Kip decided tiredly, his fate was sealed. Why not be honest? Maybe if just one of them had been brave enough to just tell the damn truth sometime in the last 8 years things would never have got this bad. Maybe. 

'You were a good man, and a good friend,' Kip said, voice cracked and rough. He saw Monroe relax and nod to himself, that was what he wanted to hear. For a second, Kip lost his conviction, seeing a pardon a short walk through some lies away. Just tell Monroe he was trying to get Miles to come back in, that he was talking him around. Instead, he closed his eyes, opened them and added, 'And now you're a madman who tortures women and little boys for a point. The Monroe I admired wouldn't have done that.'

It wasn't glib or eloquent, but Kip never had been. He'd been a semi-bad lad in Chicago with a GED his gran bullied him into getting and a gun he'd only ever shown to people. It wasn't until after the Blackout that he realised he was good at shit like this, at getting people organised and doing stuff. These days he could keep books and estimate on the fly how many bullets an engagement would need, but he still couldn't string a sentence together so it sung.

'Maybe you didn't know me as well as you thought,' Monroe said coldly.

'Good,' Kip snorted. 'I wouldn't want to. The last guy who knew you that well? Doesn't Miles want you dead these days?'

Monroe crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed Kip's jaw. His fingers dug in to loose, stubbled skin as he forced Kip's head up. Despite the brutality of the gesture, Monroe's face was still and almost pleasant.

'He might want me dead,' he said conversationally, 'but it doesn't look as if he gives much of a damn about you at all. You shelter him and his little band of idiots, you feed them and you warm them and you hide them from me, yet what does Miles give you in return? Nothing. He takes off with his family and leaves you to burn for his crimes.'

Monroe let go of Kip's face with a shove and a sneer. Kip winced and swallowed hard, tasting the memory of greasy smoke on bitter winter air and the horrible hungry gurgle from his snow-starved stomach. Burning was a bad way to go. None were good, but burning was up there with the worst.

'I guess he figured five people outweighed one old man.' And yeah, that stung. He'd risked his ass for Miles more than once, but his granny had always said gratitude was like milk – it had a short shelf life. Either way, Kip wasn't going to give Monroe the satisfaction of knowing that hit home.  
'He's a better man than you.'

Monroe stared at him like he was an idiot. 'That's because he didn't have to be me,' he said. 'He left.'

'Maybe we should have taken the hint and packed up too,' Kip said. 

Monroe surprised him when he looked away, admitting in a soft voice, 'Probably.'

'Not too late,' Kip said, with a last-minute flare of not-particularly convinced by itself hope. He licked more blood off his lips. 'Just pack up and go, man.'

That got him a tight, twitched smile and Monroe shook his head. 'It's always too late, Kip. We're pirates now.'

He seemed amused by that. Kip didn't get it. 

'Am I gonna walk the plank then?' he asked. 'If I am, there's some stuff I'd like to send North – if you'd let me?'

To his daughter, but he'd never mentioned her to Monroe and he wasn't going to start now. There was a reason Tom Neville had taken so many years to reach Major, despite his skills. 'Men with families,' Monroe had always said, 'are men with divided loyalties'. And nothing got better after Miles left.

So Kip had left the kid in Quebec with her mom's folk, sent what he could when he could. He'd seen her once, a little snip of thing that babbled confidently at him in French and didn't look back when her Grandma took her away. He doubted she even knew who was, and couldn't say he blamed her mom for that.

'Why should I?' Monroe asked.

'Because I was very loyal for a very long time?' Kip asked. 'Because once, I did love you for a magnificent bastard? Or hell, do it because it won't cost you anything.'

Monroe turned his back and headed back to the window, staring out. His hands clasped behind his back, flexing against each other slowly.

'Send it,' he said finally. Kip sighed in relief and then stiffened when Monroe turned and gave him that 'found your fracture' smile. He set his jaw and waited for the other wrench to drop. 'I'm not going to execute you, Kip. I'm not as able to forget my debts as Miles. So you keep your life, but I'm taking everything else. Your commission, your home, your servants. After today you're nothing to me.'

The swell of relief almost drowned Kip. He closed his eyes tight and nodded, ideas chasing each other through his head. Maybe he could get to know the kid anyhow, he knew a bit of French. He could learn more. 'That's more than gracious,' he said. 'More than fair. I'll go, you won't see me again.'

Monroe smile was so sharp it was like a cut. 'And have you run off to join the rebels?' he said. 'I can't risk that, Kip, you're too good at your job. No, you stay here in Philadelpha, in the encampment.'

Oh, stupid man. He'd known better than to fall for it, but he still did. 'As what?' he asked.

Monroe shrugged. 'I gave you one job, you threw it back in my face. Sharpen knives or cobble boots, beg for all I care. You're not my problem any more, Kip. And you seem...low...on Miles list of priorities.'

He rang the bell that summoned the guards from outside, watching blankly as they man-handled Kip out of the chair. Kip swore but didn't bother to fight. Even if he could take the men down, he knew he wasn't as good at hand to hand as Monroe. That wasn't how he was going to kill him. He resisted for just a second as they started to drag him away, giving Monroe a toothy, humourless grin. 

'She'd be ashamed of you,' he said, shaping each word precisely. 'If she could see you, she'd spit on you.'

After all these years, did Monroe really think he was the only one who knew how to be cruel?


End file.
